exercise will never be my lover. Or even my friend. For me, a workout is more like an annoying coworker I have to see a few times a week.

I think what tends to embarrass me most is how much I struggle at the little things that seem to come so easily to most people, mainly involving routine and self-care. It's hard for me to do things like cook a meal, not be in a constant apocalyptically late rush everywhere I go, to put something back when I'm finished with it. I seem to be hardwired for chaos and disorganization.

If you're a beautiful Caucasian woman, and you commit a heinous crime, it's like people don't want to acknowledge the reality of your actions.

During my MFA, I was lucky to be surrounded by a really supportive group of peers. And now I get feedback pretty exclusively from freaks only.

Luckily I'm on prescription drugs that prevent me from worrying about anything too much.

My poor family. I try to protect them from my work. My parents are very religious, and my brother and sister are very normal. We have an understanding, I think, that what I do isn't quite down their alley.

For many years I wrote nothing but "I will not sleep with Steve Almond" over and over again, page after page à la Jack Torrance in The Shining. Finally, hundreds of psychotherapy sessions and an intense shaman-guided DMT sweat lodge experience led to a breakthrough, and I was able to write about other people I would not sleep with, and also about people I would.